Ciao a Tutti! I'm Sarah, wife to Marco, and Mamma to Luca Benz and Mila Skye. Capturing the sweetness in our lives, so here is a glimpse of my life as a Swiss American housewife, and terrible speller, living in Italy, keeping up to speed with play dates, pool dates, park dates, cleaning the house dates, getting food on the table dates... and the occasional date date and glass of wine. Welcome to The Sweet Life!

La Dolce Vita

Friday, November 28, 2014

Graditude

It's been a long time, I know, I just can't seem to put the time together and just write, I get distracted so easily, plus when LB is awake I am unplugged. It's a Ceccarello house rule. But enough of my OCDness and onto some more relevant and exciting updates...
Lawd, where the h*ll do I begin, see that's what I get for being such a sucky blogger, and letting my OCD kick in.
Well lets start off with Luca is now officially as of today 18 months, yes that means in 6 months he will be 2!!! WTH. So what's new with him? He is 100% off the boob. I have been getting shit from people (I wont name names) about nursing Luca...I never let it get to me, and I loved every moment, and so did Luca so basically I just silently told people to f* ck off and mind their own business, it felt right to me, and Luca was happy healthy and everything was just rainbows and butterflies... Until he would not go to sleep anymore... The only time I would nurse him was when he was very upset (and if homeopathic remedies did not do the trick... which was rare) and when I put him down for his afternoon nap, and at bedtime. It was all going well, but for some reason about a month ago he just would refuse to fall asleep. I'm talking an hour 1/2 of trying to but a toddler to bed is NOT fun. I tried everything, and he would ONLY WANT ME!
So I decided it was time. No more boob. I was ready and I knew Luca was too.
The only mistake I did was I did not savor the last time i nursed Luca. I still tear up now, my sweet baby boy is growing up so ridiculously fast, and I didn't even take the time to cherish those sweet moments. Well anyway I get beat myself up about it or just move on. Which is what I did, and I am doing. Luca never asked for "num nums" again. That was the easy part. The hard part of "operation no boob" was the actual getting him to sleep part, which was why I weaned him in the first place! Well, we (Marco and I) set a new routine. Bath at 7, dinner at 7:30, playtime, Marco reads (while I clean up dinner) around 8:30 with Luca's chamomile tea (yes, just like an old man) than brush teeth. Luca says night night to Papa' and I take over. Light a candle, we (I) tell each other what we did that day, and what we are thankful for. We say night night to about everything in his room, blow out candle and I put him in his bed, he talks for about 5 minutes and I sing and rub his back. Hes out by 9. Score.
If he wakes up at night, which is rare, all I have to do is go into his room, and rub his back for a minute (and put the covers back over him, which is actually pointless, because after 2 seconds he out from under them... damn winter). Luca refuses to sleep with any stuffed animal, just his 2 blankies he snuggles with.
The transition has been amazing. Bittersweet, but amazing. I know I did the right thing, at the right time.
One problem. Getting Sick. Luca has never really gotten sick, just maybe a snotty nose, or a cough, but nothing that he has had to take anything for. Well after I totally weaned Luca he got a fever for 24 hours, than two weeks later a fever that lasted 4 days, than a runny nose, than a cough, than a fever... Well you get the point, this kid was not doing well. I couldn't understand why, yes maybe the absolute crap weather wasn't helping much, but why was he always getting sick? And if you know me I hate giving him medicine. I was doing everything the alternative way, until it got to the point where we had to give him a non homeopathic solution. It helped, but not really in the long. I was researching and than it totally occurred to me. While nursing Luca I was giving him all the nutrients he needed, and when I stopped his immune system totally went crazy, and therefor... Fevers, and coughs, and snots, oh my! Well that made me feel like the Mommy of the year. My fault my son gets sick. Gawd this Mamma thing. Its hard! But for the moment hes fine, happy healthy and a talking machine!! He is a human parakeet. His favorite activities include, any sort or car play, coloring, owls, putting toilet paper down the toilet, while saying nonono Duka. He is head over heals in love with our 9 year old neighbor Anna, and insists on seeing her every time he sees her door, which is all the time, since she lives right across the hall. The excuses I make up... you should hear them. "No Luca, Anna cannot play, she is going nanna. She is going cacca. She has a bobo", etc... He does not know what "Anna is at school means". All the other excuses seem totally legit to him. LB also loves going to our piazza's Ludoteca, which is basically a place where kids and parents can go to chat (parents) and drink coffee (parents) and play with toys (kids) and lick foreign objects (Luca). It's a win win solution on shitty days where we cant go to the park. Score.
We are in less than 3 weeks leaving for Baltimore, Luca, Marco, Franco and I will be stateside for more than a month. We are so excited. So excited.
I promise promise I will be posting more often, I just wrote a short book. Not okay. Ps my computer is really hating me, and has not been cooperating AT ALL, I apologize in advance for the crap pictures and the quality. We had a fierce battle, and my mac won. It really needs to get checked out.